Timed Out
by LilyGhost
Summary: Ranger comforts Stephanie after they arrive too late to save the day.


**Anyone or anything familiar belongs to Janet. The mistakes are mine alone.**

"Why?" Is the only word I've been able to get out so far.

"Do you mean _why_ as a whole? There are too many questions and issues here for me to guess which one you're focused on, Babe."

"Why would anyone kill themselves? I mean ... there are _always_ other options."

"That's a handy tagline, but for some ... there aren't - and probably never were - any options."

I don't want to believe that. "If I wouldn't have asked you to stop for a lunch-salad, thinking we had time to kill ... _shit!_ That was a horrible thing to say despite how true it turned out to be. We could've stopped this ... _prevented it_."

"Maybe, maybe not," Ranger told me.

I turned my head and stared at him in disbelief. "There are _no_ maybes here. You would've grabbed her and pulled her away from the railing, or you would've dove into the river right after her like you did with me, saving her either way. If we would've arrived twenty minutes sooner, Bree Brivlage wouldn't be in a net right now, being dragged out of the Delaware friggin' River."

"Maybe not today, but she could've been found hanging in her cell tonight, unresponsive on her bedroom floor an hour after she was released tomorrow, or be in the ER next month getting her stomach pumped. It's not a pleasant thing to think about, but depending on what she was dealing with in her life, it's possible nothing could have saved her. Not even your desperate need to."

My eyes were full ... of tears, guilt, and a fair amount of misery. Tank's grandmother dies two weeks after I finally get to meet the woman who raised him. Yesterday, my dad received a warning from his doctor to get healthy or else he'll see him on the other end of a heart attack - which led me to seriously rethink my position on greens. And Mrs. Markowitz just got shipped off to a rehabilitation center from the hospital to 'recover' from a hip-breaking fall. It's too much all at once. My brain was desperate for a break from a pretty sucky reality three days ago, now we're on-scene for this. I want to tap out of my life for awhile until the worst has passed.

"I could've helped her. That's part of my job," I told Ranger, trying to resist the comfort he wanted to give me.

I don't deserve it. I'd welcome it with open arms if I had been able to do something besides break down.

Ranger didn't acknowledge the fucked-up thoughts that had me trying to pull away from him. My head's stuck in a bad place and he was going to fix it by holding onto me while blocking out everything else. If Bree was as lucky as I am to have someone like Ranger love her, I know for damn sure she wouldn't have left him by jumping off a fucking Jersey bridge for Chrissake.

"Steph, your job was to locate her and arrest her," he said against my hair, "not delve into twenty years of abuse, multiple arrests, and ambivalence, and try to make it all go away for her. Life doesn't work that way."

"But if she wanted help ..."

"You said it ... _if_ she wanted help. The increasing erratic and risk-taking behavior her roommate told us about, suggests Bree already gave up on the idea of help, gave up _on herself_. It's likely she would've fought or completely ignored your attempts to help her if she had decided to do this already."

Ranger suddenly turned his body and mine with it. Although I can't see anything except the material of the black Rangeman jacket zipped over his chest, I know exactly what just changed. They're now moving my skip from the ice-cold water to the ME's meatwagon. A fresh - and much bigger - wave of guilt and not-understanding-this hit me.

"That's where _I_ would've come in," I said into his jacket. "I could've harassed, bullied, and annoyed, her into giving a shit. I've done it before, and I was fully prepared to do it again."

"Or in two weeks, you would have cared too much yourself, and you'd end up completely heartbroken instead of just sad when we face the same outcome ... just at a later date."

"I'm more than sad."

"I know, Babe," he said, tightening his arms and kissing my head.

"Uh, Steph, excuse me for interrupting," Eddie butted in. "Did you know the deceased?"

I flinched at the word. "She's ... she _was ..._ my skip."

"Was she a regular?"

"No, not a regular of mine."

He sighed, seeing a longer day in his future. "So you can't say with absolute certainty that _our body_ is _your FTA_?"

"I have her file in Ranger's car. All her info is in it. I spent the two hours before we got here memorizing her face from her mugshot just so I _would_ be able to identify her. I just didn't think it'd be in this way."

"Were you the ones who called it in? Did you see her jump?"

"No. When we got here, a search was already starting," Ranger answered. "But a witness to the jump gave us a general description that matches what we have on her."

"But you didn't see her yourself, so you don't know for sure it's your FTA," he stated.

I wanted to say ' _No, I'm not sure. She's probably alive, sitting somewhere eating Mickey D's and bitching about how busy tomorrow's gonna be'_ , but I've long since waved bye-bye to Denial Land.

"I _know,_ " I told Eddie. "Her roommate said Bree had been feeling 'antsy' and had gone for a run that included a bridge loop. Since we knocked on their door, the roommate knew what caused her sudden urge to flee. We were planning to get her coming or going, but ..."

"You know we're going to need a positive ID," Eddie reminded the side of my head, since I hadn't absorbed enough Ranger-strength yet and refused to lift it for anyone.

"I'll do it, Babe," Ranger offered.

"No. _NO_ ," I repeated more emphatically. "She is ... was _my skip_ , so that makes this _my responsibility_."

"Uhhh, Steph," Eddie started to say, concerned about my current mood and odd tone, but Ranger cut him off to address my stubbornness himself.

"You _are not_ hurting yourself to prove a point, or to drive the point of a guilt-knife in deeper."

"I'm not. I'm doing _my job._ And unfortunately, you know better than anyone ... ugly moments like this one are part of it. I owe it to Bree to not let her be labeled a Jane Doe for any amount of time."

"You owe it _to yourself_ not to have the face of someone you don't even know haunting you for the rest of your life. Trust me on this one, Stephanie. You will _never_ forget it _or_ them."

"I know, that's why I'm doing this."

 _No one_ should ever have to feel so desperate that death becomes their only way out. Bree obviously felt she had no one and no alternatives, but someone is going to be there for her now ... _me_. And Ranger, since he wouldn't remove his arm from around my shoulders as we walked to 'the body', which is the description of Bree that the stupid police radios kept squawking out.

Eddie made quick introductions that I won't remember and I dropped my eyes down to the otherworldly-looking face of a woman I don't know, like Ranger said a minute ago, but one I would have put all my energy into befriending and helping if I'd just had more time.

"It's her. It's Bree," I said, unable to look away from the soaking wet, dyed blue/black hair and gray/blue eyes stuck open ... staring straight at me, but not accusingly like I kept picturing. I might've preferred a 'W _hy didn't you save me?_ ' glare over the vacant stare that proves she's no longer in there.

I didn't want to upset Ranger further by saying out loud what I felt I had to, but I spoke it sincerely and brokenly inside my own mind.

' _I'm sorry_ ,' I told Bree. Unfortunately, she'll never know how much.


End file.
